Chapter 279: Come With Me, and You Will Soon Understand
Despite Azrael's interjection, the atmosphere at the scene remained tense due to the knight's resistance. An invisible killing intent filled the air, the blade's-edge pressure almost palpable. The Dark Angels' fingers had quietly closed on the triggers of their weapons, but all eyes were focused on Arthur—they were awaiting the King's judgment.
Arthur strode forward, the tip of his black sword dragging a shallow line in the sand. He looked directly into the eyes revealed beneath the knight's shattered faceplate: in the cloudy yellow pupils, the nictitating membranes, long since atrophied in humans, were constantly opening and closing with the other's tension. This was definitely not a normal Space Marine characteristic.
His expression darkened slightly. "At ease," he said, raising his left hand in a downward gesture. The sound of weapons being lowered echoed around them. At that moment, a gust of wind howled past, the sand it carried forming a natural sound barrier. For a knight who had been tormented by the whispers of the warp for so long, it was a rare relief.
"You have been in the warp for some time," he added. "Just explain what you have seen."
"My Lord, I was alone on a space hulk for five hundred years, until a rift appeared and threw me out. In the process, my body mutated, but I did not yield. I know which voices are trying to deceive me. Lord Galahad has also stressed—" the knight quickly organized his words, his mind unusually clear.
Arthur picked out a few details and got the answer he wanted. His gaze fell on the mottled scars on the knight's pauldron. The marks looked as if they had been corroded by some acidic substance. The knight, sensing his gaze, unconsciously tensed his body. Suddenly, he knelt on one knee.
"My Lord, you may send me to the most dangerous battlefield," his voice was tinged with an urgency. "I only wish to fight for humanity again. I do not wish to shame my name and honor." He was very nervous. The mutation was real, and it was for this reason that he had resisted the action of a comrade he had deemed trustworthy from removing his helmet.
"I am not here to kill anyone," Arthur shook his head, then looked directly at the knight's faceplate, at the eyes behind it. "You have never fallen to Chaos, have you?"
"No, I have not," the knight's reply was firm.
"That is enough," Arthur nodded. His methodical calm made the knight relax slightly. This unexpected tolerance left him at a loss, but at the same time, a long-lost sense of peace welled up in his heart.
"Zahariel, of the First Squad, Thirteenth Order, Ironwing, during the Great Crusade. Do you know him?"
"I do."
"I will issue you a writ. You will have the authority to conceal your appearance. Then you will have the warrior who is supervising you contact Zahariel. We will, through surgery, solve the Chaos contamination of your physical body and allow you to reintegrate into the collective."
The organizational improvements of the past few years had finally paid off. He could now delegate such matters to the specialized warriors under his command. Zahariel, who had experience with Chaos contamination, and the members of the Pentaculum Wing, who were in charge of psychic research, were the experts responsible for assessing and treating warriors who had been eroded by Chaos. Now, they also had to provide psychological counseling for their comrades who had spent a long time in the warp, and to strip away the contamination through precision surgery. This series of operations, which in the past would have required him and Ramesses, could now be handed over to his warriors.
He reached out and gripped the knight's forearm, the power armour clashing with a crisp metallic sound. The sharp edges of his gauntlet carved a string of ancient Dark Angels code onto the other's pauldron. And the examiner, having received the message, also gave up the idea of removing the other's helmet, and instead began to ask about trivial matters from the Great Crusade. The process was unbelievably smooth, and even left the knight, who had been prepared to die, a little bewildered.
"I know that feeling. That feeling of being blinded by resentment," after a brief exchange of glances with Azrael, Cypher, who couldn't figure out how big this kid's intelligence network was, decided not to dwell on this small matter. The Prince's judgment had already put an end to this standoff.
He turned to the still-tense Fallen Angels and said, spreading his arms, "I have also enjoyed that feeling. In the days of the Great Crusade, I was part of a great cause. I had my brothers by my side. I knew my goal. So even when we were exiled to Caliban, I could accept it, because I could see that our Legion was changing the galaxy."
The sandstorm suddenly grew more violent, the sand striking their armour with a fine patter. Cypher looked up, his helmet lenses reflecting the yellow sky. "And then... Caliban was destroyed."
A heavy sigh was mixed in with the howling wind. His hand slowly clenched into a fist, then slowly relaxed. "A warp storm threw me into the turbulence of time and space," Cypher's voice was low. He raised a hand, and the water vapor that seeped from the seams of his armour condensed into a bead in his palm. "When I finished this journey alone and returned to reality, the goals of the past were already blurred. Even though I later found a few companions—" his gaze swept over Galahad's mottled pauldron. "—we could only bow our heads and flee, to live a wretched life. A broken warship, a group of comrades with their own agendas... the grand vision of changing the galaxy had nothing to do with us anymore."
"But now we can," he suddenly stood up straight, his hands slowly raised, his palms up in a sacrificial gesture, facing Arthur. Like a knight swearing an oath to his lord in an ancient ritual. "Brothers! Our own father made a mistake. I know this very well, and you will soon know it too. We will break free from the mists of the past, take up our swords again, follow the glory of the Primarch, and continue to fight for humanity. You can choose to join us, to find a new goal, to stand shoulder to shoulder with your comrades, with the enemies of humanity as your only foe. Or—"
Cypher's right hand suddenly pointed in the direction of Fort Vigilus. "—refuse the Prince's grace, and continue this meaningless exile, until one day you are captured by the Unforgiven and atone for a crime you did not commit on a rack."
"Of course—" at this, Cypher once again showed a smile. "—if you're lucky enough, perhaps when we take The Rock, we can still pull you out of the dungeons."
The Fallen were silent for a moment. "If you had not returned from that warp storm..." one of them, still trying to maintain a stubborn air, suddenly said, his damaged vox-caster revealing a hint of real emotion. "—I would not have mourned for you, Cypher."
Galahad let out a soft laugh, his fingers unconsciously tracing the etched patterns on the other's shoulder. "I didn't expect you to have such eloquence."
"My words have always been excellent. It's just that my past did not give me a chance to use them," Cypher shrugged. "Let's go. You've taken up a lot of the Prince's time. By rights, Zahariel should be decrypting the Void Claw with the Ironwing right now." He pointed to the drill-machines that were taking cover from the storm.
"Many times I have wondered about the meaning of all this," Galahad said.
Hearing this, Azrael couldn't help but frown. "Meaning?"
The question made Cypher sneer, and he shook his head. "This is not meaning. This is grace. A charity. A chance given to us." No one could do it. Just like in the past, they could not build trust with each other. And those who could bring them peace would not necessarily do so. This was a charity. The Prince could have just ignored them and created his own Dark Angels Legion. It would have just taken a little more time.
"The Prince needs our help. He hopes to protect as many humans as possible. He needs the power of the First Legion to achieve this goal," Gareth hesitated for a moment, then said, "To be frank, I think the Prince is very lonely. He, like us, suddenly woke up and entered a world that was completely different from the one he knew before. In this world, all the grand designs and dreams in his heart have been destroyed compared to reality. But the Prince has always faced it with fortitude. But I think he has always longed for familiar things and people."
"And we are not one of them," Cypher continued.
"We are becoming one of them," Gareth retorted. "We have already made the Prince believe that before the Lion's army attacked, at least a considerable number of people on Caliban were indeed ignorant of the enmity between him and Luther. And now, the Prince hopes the First Legion will become better."
"I cannot disappoint the Prince."
"See? A chance," Cypher did not elaborate, but pointed to Gareth and gestured to the neophyte beside him.
Waiting for the drill-vehicle to sink into the ground and head for the Wardens of Steel camp outside the storm, Cypher drew his sword and followed Arthur. "Come with me," he said to Azrael. "You will soon understand."
In the center of the storm, inside Fort Vigilus, the Fallen Angels who had gathered here for countless years were in a state of chaos. The returnists, the Chaos-aligned, the revanchists, the neutralists... all the factions had come out. It was a chaotic dance of demons.
The Fallen Librarian Olynder had been caught completely off guard. According to their original plan, they would sacrifice a small number of people, let them be captured by the Dark Angels from The Rock, and then deliberately leak their intelligence. Then, relying on the Void Claw, a super-weapon that could distort space-time and create a continuous gravitational anomaly, they would directly destroy The Rock, and thus, once and for all, resolve the conflict between the Fallen and the Dark Angels.
But plans change. Instead of luring in the Fallen, they had lured in four Primarchs. And now, the Primarch who was currently leading the Dark Angels had sent them an invitation. Someone had already run. And hadn't died!
But a message from Abaddon had also come. He demanded that Olynder activate the Void Claw and send the Primarchs and their armies to the heavens. But the Fallen were not all Chaos Space Marines. Many of them were just huddling together for warmth, and even still retained their former honor. So whether to agree to Abaddon's request... even Olynder's own faction was deeply divided.
In the control room, Olynder roared. He looked at the Chaos Warmaster, who had come here through a psychic projection, his voice filled with disgust. "I did promise you a favor, but that does not mean I have to go this far for you!"
The Chaos Warmaster glanced at him. Olynder's refusal did not cause him a flicker of emotion. "Don't you want revenge? Isn't now a chance to reveal the truth?"
The Fallen—they were still the First Legion. They, like the other sons of Lion, had a near-fanatical obsession, and also a deep-seated hatred. "The Corpse-Emperor has once again sent his sons to amend the galaxy, to annihilate the truth, and to add to his ambition. Your thousand young comrades are also like this." And Abaddon had taken advantage of this. He had very carefully chosen his inflammatory words, disguised under a veneer of negotiation.
This made the surrounding Librarians restless. This gave the Chaos Warmaster a slight sense of excitement. "Let us bury this conspiracy, and then gather the warriors who are loyal to you. We will go together to unseal those secrets, to tear off the hypocritical masks of those traitors."
The Warmaster's words blurred the concepts, shifted the positions. He stressed the role of cutting off the Emperor's light in revealing the dark secrets of the First Legion. He stressed the Dark Angels' betrayal on Caliban. He stressed the Imperium's betrayal of the Space Marines.
In the matter of completely annihilating the four Primarchs, he had cleverly merged the concept of "inflicting an unrecoverable blow on the Imperium" with "forcing the Dark Angels to reveal their true nature," wanting to shake the thoughts of the Fallen.
Olynder was a little stunned. He didn't know what madness the Chaos Warmaster was spouting. He just wanted to get rid of the Dark Angels. He didn't plan to return to the Legion. But that didn't mean he wanted humanity to pay the price of four Primarchs' lives. "I will not destroy humanity's hope! Absolutely not!" he roared, expressing his anger.
Cooperation had its limits. What did Abaddon take him for? A dog kept by the Black Legion?
"Heh heh, I will wait and see," the Chaos Warmaster said, no longer looking at the angry Olynder. After a rousing end to his speech, he directly cut the communication.
"What do we do?" someone asked in a low voice.
"You choose for yourselves," Olynder said, looking at the dissipating projection with disgust. He then said to his lieutenant, "Luvon, gather the remaining psykers. Let's see if we can teleport this instrument away."
"Teleport it away?" Luvon stood quietly, his voice slow. "Do you remember what you promised me? Do you remember what you promised us? The Imperium is already in flames. The struggles of the various Imperial factions cannot quell the unrest. This galaxy will grow weaker in its internal strife, and will no longer be able to hide the truth of the past. But the Primarchs have returned. They have returned." Luvon's words were very light and slow, seemingly an analysis of the current situation. "Where is our revenge?!"
Olynder's eyes widened. "Who are you loyal to?!"
"At least not this one," his aide at his side said, bowing low. "Look at me, sir."
Olynder instinctively looked up and saw the blood-red eyes. His whole body froze. A moment later, countless mutated limbs grew from his body. This rather legendary Dark Angels Librarian bloomed into a flower of blood, trembling.
SQUELCH!
In an instant, he had turned into a Chaos Spawn. Luvon glanced at him, then turned to the Fallen Angel standing on the other side. The latter had raised his gun long ago, but was held in place by a psychic restraint.
In the dense gunfire that followed Olynder's death, Luvon began to operate the instrument. But before he could figure out the plan that Olynder had left behind, another squad of Fallen Angels had arrived. "For the Emperor!"
They were the Dark Angels... They, with their respective purposes, had begun a bloody slaughter. They were still the First Legion. They, like the other sons of Lion, had a near-fanatical obsession. Just as the descendants of the First Legion longed to force the Fallen to repent, the Fallen's obsession with revenge also overshadowed everything. They had hated each other for ten thousand years, and in the end, had become the same person.
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